One or more embodiments disclosed within this specification relate to electronic communications.
With the proliferation of Internet access in recent decades, the use of electronic communication to exchange digital messages from an author to one or more recipients has become commonplace. Examples of electronic communications include electronic mail, text messages and instant messages. Electronic communications typically are communicated across the Internet or other computer networks.
E-mail systems, for example, generally are based on a store-and-forward model in which e-mails are stored in an e-mail client and/or e-mail server and forwarded to one or more recipients. In this regard, e-mail servers generally are configured to accept, forward, deliver and store e-mail messages. E-mail clients commonly are used to generate, send, forward and receive e-mails. The e-mail clients may reside on a user's communication device (e.g., workstation, personal computer, mobile computer, tablet computer, personal digital assistant, mobile telephone, etc.), or on a server to which the user's communication device is communicatively linked. Via an e-mail client, the user may generate an e-mail, and identify one or more recipients to whom the e-mail may be sent. The e-mail recipients can include those who are identified in a “To” field, those identified in a “Cc” field, and those identified in a “Bcc” filed. “Cc” is an acronym for the term “carbon copy” and “Bcc” is an acronym for the term “blind carbon copy.” “Carbon copy” and “blind carbon copy” are legacy terms from when carbon paper commonly was used to produce one or more copies simultaneously during the creation of paper. Such terms have been carried over to modern electronic communication systems, even though electronic communication systems do not rely on carbon paper to create copies.
The recipients identified in the “To” field usually are the recipients to whom the content of the e-mail is directed. The recipients in the “Cc” field usually are those recipients to whom the content is not specifically directed, but who are to be made aware of the e-mail content. Those recipients identified in the “To” and “Cc” fields typically are identified in e-mails that are sent. Thus, all recipients receiving an e-mail usually will be made aware of each of the recipients identified in the “To” field and the “Cc” field.
The recipients in the “Bcc” field usually are those recipients to whom the content of the e-mail is not specifically directed, who are to be made aware of the e-mail content, but whom the sender of the e-mail wishes to remain unidentified in the e-mails sent to other recipients. Thus, recipients of e-mails typically are not made aware of other recipients who are identified in the “Bcc” field.